Effects Of Vitamin Supplements

In order to stay fit and healthy, our body requires sufficient quantities of vitamins everyday. It needs vitamins to perform several functions like digestion of food, growth of muscles, improvement of eyesight, heart conditions and nervous systems. Many of us believe that taking vitamin supplements in addition to a healthy diet would work miracles for us. But there are both pros and cons of vitamin supplements, and they are certainly no substitute for a good, healthy diet.

If you maintain a balanced diet including food from all the important groups and don't have any specific health concern, you are unlikely to need the use of vitamin supplements. Vitamin supplements can help you in real terms if you cannot manage to ensure a healthy, balanced diet on a daily basis. It is wrong to think that popping a few vitamin pills after eating junk food will neutralize the ill effects of your action.

Let us talk about the pros of taking vitamin supplements to begin with. Medical practitioners recommend some of them for our benefit. For example, pregnant women are often asked to take 400 micrograms of folic acid daily during the first three months of pregnancy. This is in addition to the 200 micrograms of folic acid that we usually have from our regular meals.

Although we can get our required vitamin D from our diet and from our exposure to the sun, a pregnant or breastfeeding woman can take a vitamin D supplement of 10 micrograms daily. Those who rarely get outdoors or who always cover up completely in the sunshine may also use 10 micrograms of vitamin D everyday.

Kids require regular vitamin intake to grow up strong and healthy. But as they are mostly fussy eaters, providing the needed vitamins through their diet can prove to be a difficult job. Moreover, children also burn up lots of energy and vitamins by running around. Therefore, it is better to give them supplements of vitamins A, C and D when they are between 6 months and 5 years old.

Now to the cons of using vitamin supplements. It is a mistake to believe that too much of certain types of vitamins are good for health. In fact, such a practice can prove to be harmful instead. For example, the use of vitamin A supplements during pregnancy is harmful as this may affect the development of the baby. The use of over 10mg per day of vitamin B6 can cause loss of feeling in the arms and legs, while you can get abdominal pain or diarrhea if you use daily doses of more than 1,000mg of vitamin C.

In fact, the amount of a certain vitamin you may require varies, depending on several factors like your age, health condition and lifestyle. Aged persons, people with particular health conditions, children, nursing mothers or those with restrictive diets could all require different amounts of vitamins depending on their specific conditions. While vitamin supplements can really help those people who cannot manage to have a balanced diet, they are in no way a real substitute for a healthy lifestyle. It is imperative that you consider your specific requirements before deciding on the use of supplements, and take them in a safe and proper way.

• Matt Thompson
• 09/02/2009, 10:59 PM
• 0 Comments